Con's colorful to the end

Pop-culture fest wraps another sold-out year

By Peter Rowe&#160;
| 2 a.m.July 27, 2009

Tony Daniel of Santee held his costumed son, Tristan, as the 8-month-old came face-to-face yesterday with a full-grown version of comic book hero Spider-Man at the 40th annual Comic-Con at the San Diego Convention Center. The event in downtown San Diego brought big crowds and long lines. (Howard Lipin /
Union-Tribune)

Tony Daniel of Santee held his costumed son, Tristan, as the 8-month-old came face-to-face yesterday with a full-grown version of comic book hero Spider-Man at the 40th annual Comic-Con at the San Diego Convention Center. The event in downtown San Diego brought big crowds and long lines. (Howard Lipin /
Union-Tribune)

The 40th annual Comic-Con, which ended its 4½-day run in the San Diego Convention Center yesterday, resembled an issue of “Batman.” Like the Dark Knight, the pop-culture extravaganza was rich in bold characters, nail-biting suspense and wild humor.

If this year's Con had been a comic book, these would have been among its eye-catching panels:

A hero unleashed?

At 9:30 a.m. yesterday, Robert Downey Jr. stood amid a trio of women near a Land Rover parked outside the Ivy Hotel. The movie star had rocked Comic-Con panels Friday and Saturday. Why not Sunday, too?

Unless he got a better offer.

“We have beach chairs and Boogie boards,” explained one of the women.

The con goes on

Ramon Valdiosera Berman, the 92-year-old Mexican comics pioneer, overruled the paramedics. Nothing – not even collapsing offstage – would keep him from coming onstage Saturday.
“He had to go to his panel,” said Sergio Aragonés, the cartoonist who moderated the session. “This, to him, was very important.”

With paramedics standing by, Valdiosera accepted Comic-Con's Inkpot Award for lifetime achievement. Then he rode in an ambulance to his hotel.

“His vital signs are fine,” Aragonés said yesterday, still marveling at his determined colleague. “That's what this profession is all about: heart.”

Coming to a ballot near you

The writers of “Futurama” noted that a new episode involves the marriage of Amy and Bender, the robot. The controversial nuptials inspired a ballot measure banning human-robot marriage: Proposition Infinity.

Someone cheerful this way comes

Author Ray Bradbury, a Comic-Con fixture since the beginning, was asked about his unquenchable optimism.
“I love life,” said Bradbury, 88. “I love every minute of it. It's been a full, wonderful, glorious adventure for me and I'm going to make it to 100, so help me God!”

And then?

“I plan to be buried on Mars!”

Fate worse than failure

Scott Sanders, director of “Black Dynamite,” an intentionally slipshod spoof of 1970s “blaxploitation” films, shudders when he considers a sequel.
“If this is a hit and I have to do another 'Black Dynamite,' that's going to be a big mess for me,” Sanders said. “I'd pick up all these bad habits!”

Words, unminced

Although Terrence Howard co-starred in last year's hit “Iron Man,” he's has been replaced by Don Cheadle in next year's “I M 2.” sequel. Howard's dismissal angered some fans, but producer Kevin Feige has no regrets.

“What we felt was, we had a chance to improve the movie with Don Cheadle,” he said.

Holy Comic-Con!

This was Park Chan-Wook's first Comic-Con, and the Korean director was stunned by his rapturous reception in Hall H, where he screened clips from his new vampire film, “Thirst.”

“It's beyond imagination,” Chan-Wook said. “Just as you have Muslims go to Mecca and Christians to Jerusalem, this feels like a holy place to the people who come here.”

Perhaps Chan-Wook's pious mood was inspired by his film. The vampire's day job? He's a priest.

End times?

For the second straight year, 125,000 attendees thronged the San Diego Convention Center, which witnessed sold-out crowds each day. Still, rumblings persist that the show will leave town when its contract with San Diego expires in 2012.
Conspiracy buffs, then, were gob-smacked by the massive banner hanging in the center's lobby.

“Only 3 Comic-Cons Left,” it read. “2012 is Coming.”

On closer inspection, the banner proved to be promoting Roland Emmerich's latest global catastro-film. The writer/director/producer has previously wreaked havoc with “The Day After Tomorrow,” “Godzilla” and “Independence Day.”

But as savvy comic book readers know, there's text and then there's subtext.